


Stitches and scars

by pleasebekidding



Category: Supernatural, Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: And Damon, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Dalaric, Dealaric, Destiel - Freeform, Dirty Talk, I am so sorry, I basically had to kill Sam, M/M, Phone Sex, Please Don't Hate Me, and Castiel, to make this thing work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-11-30 01:05:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasebekidding/pseuds/pleasebekidding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in a future no one really wants to think about.<br/>--<br/>Sam's been dead and gone for years, and Cas isn't answering prayers, even when Dean shouts until his voice is hoarse.<br/>Damon died by Klaus's hand a few years back, and since then, Alaric's been crossing the country fighting vampires.<br/>Dean and Alaric take an instant dislike to each other when they meet in a falling down manse on the bayou. The sparks begin to fly almost right away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stitches and scars

There had been a few bad years for both men.

Dean had gotten so used to dying, to Sammy dying, that he had stayed in a motel room with his brother’s dead body for almost a week, sure he’d wake up, until the flies became an issue and he had to accept the inevitable. He called for Castiel until his voice was hoarse with it, but Castiel hadn’t been seen in years, and Dean was pretty sure he’d never be seen again.

Benny helped Dean get Sam’s body to the beach, a few miles away, where they burned him in his shroud. Benny stayed near for the first day, and then shuffled off, after extracting a promise from Dean (in the form of a nod, and a tear-streaked blink) that he’d call when he needed Benny, and Benny hoped that day wouldn’t be too far off because a hunter needed to hunt, and Dean was nothing if he wasn’t a hunter.

\--

Klaus had killed Damon, in the end; Alaric never thought he would. They seemed almost codependent in their dislike of each other, and privately, Alaric thought they would enjoy a game of cat and mouse that lasted centuries. No. In the end he had staked Damon with a wicked smile on his lips.

Alaric had stayed with Damon’s body for the two days it took everyone else to arrange the funeral. He didn’t eat, but he drank, and drank, and at the funeral, he stunk so badly of whiskey that Elena thought she might be drunk herself, off the fumes. After the ceremony Stefan handed Alaric Damon’s day ring, and though part of him wanted to throw it in the Falls, he knew he’d wear it forever.

The day after the funeral, Alaric packed his truck, locked the door of his loft and disappeared.

\--

Three years passed. Alaric had begun moving across the country, using a bank account that would never run dry, courtesy of Damon, and he had only one thing on his mind; killing vampires. He wasn’t stupid. He’d never take out Klaus. He knew that. What he could do was take out every other fang he could find, and he knew enough to find plenty. One at a time, a few at a time. Once he burned a farmhouse full of vampires to the ground at high noon, when they couldn’t escape. He ate an apple while he listened to the screams and watched. The apple tasted like ash.

One year, he drifted back to Mystic Falls for Christmas. He was supposed to stay a few days, but he couldn’t. He let himself into the boarding house, and Stefan wasn’t too surprised to see him there, though he was surprised at the scar on his face. It ran from Alaric’s forehead, across his eye, down his cheek. A second scar partially dissected his lip.

Stefan poured bourbon, and sat quietly, and waited. Alaric was impressed by his calm; it didn’t come naturally.

“Suicide mission,” Stefan said at last.

“Long as I take enough of them down with me, I don’t care,” Alaric said. He was bigger than he had been, stronger. Had made of himself a monster of sorts. There were rumors he couldn’t be killed. They weren’t true, but Alaric’s magic ring provided the only prop he needed to maintain the lie.

“You think Damon would want you living like this?”

Stefan said it so quiet Alaric thought he maybe wasn’t supposed to hear. He heard. “I’m stayin’ the night,” he said, “but I can’t do Christmas.”

“Elena…”

“Elena’s an adult. She doesn’t need me.” And Alaric went upstairs to the bedroom he’d shared with Damon for four years, and slept, and hated that the scent of his lover was entirely gone from that place. He left as the sun came up the next morning.

\--

There were rumors about vampires in New Orleans, not that Alaric needed to hear them. There were always vampires in New Orleans. The city drew them in. Still, that’s where he went; new year’s eve in the bayou, the only time of year the weather was tolerable, in Alaric’s view. It took him less than a day to trace the rumors to an abandoned manse with a smuggler’s cellar, backing onto the water. The back of the place was crumbling, huge struts lying across the floor, and for a moment, Alaric looked up and wondered what would happen if the whole thing caved on him. That death would not be supernatural; he would not survive that death.

He didn’t think about it for long enough to miss seeing the vampire.

“Hey-o,” was what the vampire said, in a voice so low and sick it was almost a rasp. “Not lookin’ for trouble, jess tryin’ to help,” he said. Thick Cajun accent. Beard, and the sort of face that always looked a little sad.

“Those teeth make you less than credible,” Alaric said, though he wondered why the vampire wasn’t attacking. He raised his crossbow, and hesitated.

It was like looking through time. The very first time he fought alongside Damon, and realized that he could pull the trigger, end Damon forever, and chose not to. There was a moment where Damon seemed to forgive him for what was probably going to happen. Gave his blessing. Seemed to say without saying, _it’s okay, I had it coming, had it coming a long time_.

This vampire wore that same face. Didn’t come at Alaric. Put his teeth away.

It was almost enough to make Alaric drop the crossbow; probably would have been, had a knife not just then crossed his throat, and another voice, almost as graveled, whispered in his ear, so close Alaric felt lips; “drop it, or you’ll be dead before you pull the trigger.”

He was human. His body was pressed close to Alaric’s, and he was warm, and his breath smelled like beer and oranges. The knife was pressed into Alaric’s skin, and he fancied he could smell the rich copper of his own blood bleeding from a shallow cut.

Maybe it was over.

“Drop it,” came the voice, a second time, and the knife pressed closer.

“Gimme one good reason,” Alaric said.

“He’s my best friend.”

Alaric swallowed thickly again a lump in his throat the size of a plum, and nodded, lowering the crossbow. The Cajun vampire looked more spooked than ever.

“If you’re gonna kill me,” Alaric said, “kill me. I’m not waiting around.”

“Shee-yit, Dean-O,” the vampire said; “sonofabitch sounds like you.” He chuckled lowly, and began to cross the space, stepping over beams, looking out over the water. It was dark, or close to it.

The knife was withdrawn. Hesitantly, the vampire put out a hand to shake, and even more hesitantly, Alaric shook it. “Benny LaFitte,” he said.

“Alaric Saltzman.” Alaric turned, then, and was confronted with eyes so green they seemed to carry their own light. A sprinkle of freckles that would vanish when the last of the sun disappeared behind the water.

“Dean. Winchester.” Dean did not shake hands. “This place is clean. So. You can go. Come on, Benny,” Dean said, turning on his heels. To Alaric, he said, “count to a hundred, then you can go too.”

“Naw, Dean. Took out eight vampires before sundown. It’s New Year’s Eve. Let’s go get a drink, get to know the new hunter in town.” Alaric wanted to say he wasn’t new, but he’d never seen a face as haunted as Dean’s before, and he felt, suddenly, very new.

“Benny,” Dean warned.

“Yeah, ah know, ah know. Y’don’ trus’ other hunters.”

“’m good,” Alaric said. “I’ll go.”

And he didn’t count to a hundred, he just went, and in the shitty Motel Six he found twenty miles back towards town, he lay awake for hours, and wished he had someone to talk to.

\--

As luck would have it, it was less than a week before he crossed paths with Dean Winchester a second time, in Tennessee. Alaric took the head off a werewolf that was seconds from clamping down jaws over Dean’s neck. Dean lay for long seconds catching his breath, face covered in blood, while Alaric made sure the heart was removed from the body.

And then he laughed. It was sort of a pathetic laugh. “Thought I was finally done for,” he said, still catching his breath. “Saltzman, right?”

Alaric reached out for Dean’s hand, and pulled him to his feet. “Call me Ric.”

“Ric, right. Ric. Let’s get that drink, Ric,” Dean said, pulling his t-shirt up to wipe his face. Alaric tried hard not to noticed the chiseled muscle over Dean’s stomach, the ropy scars that crossed his body. It was hard, so he looked away entirely.

“Thought you didn’t trust other hunters?”

“Feel like makin’ an exception, an account of the fact I’m not a chew toy right now.”

“You hurt?”

“Nothing a dozen beers won’t fix,” Dean said, limping heavily, as they began the trek back to where Alaric’s truck was parked. Half a mile to the Impala – Alaric couldn’t help but whimper at the perfect lines of the thing – and just as Dean was getting out, he paused. “Hit the edge of town, and about a half mile after the freeway, there’s a motel. Sunshine… something. Looks like a little slice o’ California in the middle of shitsville. ’s where ’m stayin’. There’s a bar on the end of the block. Meet you there,” he said, and climbed out of the truck.

Alaric sat stumped for a minute. Unsure what to do. He wasn’t looking to make friends, just came to take out a werewolf that had killed last full moon, and the one before. Couldn’t figure why Dean would give him the time of day now, when he’d dismissed him out of hand last time.

And then he felt cold, and wondered when saving someone’s life had stopped being something that meant it had been a good day worth celebrating. He breathed for long moments, and followed a little way behind the impala.

After washing his face and hands in a gas station bathroom, Alaric took a room at the motel, and enjoyed a long shower. The pressure was decent and the water was hot so he let it run over his shoulders, ease away the pain in his muscles.

He was the first to arrive at the bar. Took a quiet booth in the back and ordered a beer, and it was less than ten minutes before Dean arrived, still limping. Alaric watched as he carefully looked around the bar, tapped his hip as if to check his weapon, and ordered a beer. It took him another moment to spot Alaric, give him a nod, and join him in the booth.

The lights were low, but it was still the first chance they had to really look at each other. Dean had the greenest eyes Alaric had ever seen, and though he carried a sadness so heavy it seemed to make his shoulders sag, they had a sparkle to them. Dean tried hard not to examine the scar across Alaric’s face, and failed.

“Saved my ass back there, dude,” Dean said. “One of these days…” he shook his head. “Well.”

Alaric said nothing, for a long moment. “Where’s your buddy?”

“Got his own hunt. Stretched thin, these days.” Dean looked a little sad about that, too, like it wasn’t the normal order of things. Alaric was never sure about talking to people, asking questions. He did so little of it. So he just shrugged and cleared the condensation from the side of his glass with the blade of his hand.

“What happened in N’Orleans,” Dean started. “Thanks.”

Alaric grunted.

“They’re not all bad.”

Alaric nodded.

“I know that sounds like bullshit, but…”

“Not an idiot,” Alaric said. “I know they’re not all bad. I didn’t shoot him, did I?”

They drank in silence for a while, and Dean looked over the menu. Alaric was starving. “They got steak and fries. Steak and fries sounds good to me. And pie,” Dean added, looking frantically for a dessert list.

“Sounds fine.”

When the steaks were done with, and a third jug of beer ordered, the talk became less cautious. Something about the enthusiasm with which Dean ate a huge slice of blueberry pie made him seem less strange, less foreign, though perhaps it was only the beer doing Alaric’s thinking. He was surprised, anyway, when Dean gave him an appraising look, pointed the fork at him, hunched around his plate like someone might steal the last of the crust, and asked, “Who’d you lose?”

Alaric blinked, and pushed his own half-eaten pie across the table. Dean gave a snort of approval and tucked in fast.

“What do you mean?”

“No one gets into the life because they lost their job at the petting zoo, dude. Who’d you lose?”

Alaric frowned, because he literally didn’t know where to start. “Who’d _you_ lose?” he asked, deflecting the question.

Dean shrugged and shoveled another mouthful of pie into his face. “I lost everyone, man. My mom, when I was a kid. My old man, thirteen… fourteen years ago, maybe. Can’t even keep the years straight. My baby brother. Four years ago. Great lump.” There were names he didn’t add; Alaric could see it in the too-smooth brow. “You lose everyone, eventually.”

Alaric shrugged. Who had he lost? Isobel. He hadn’t lost Isobel, she had run screaming from a normal life, but that’s how it had started, he supposed. All the deaths in Mystic Falls, eventually too many to think about separately.

“My wife,” he said eventually. “She left me to be a vampire. Started me in this whole fucking mess.”

“She still around?”

“No.”

“You kill her?”

No, life killed her. Her own stupid plans killed her. Her betrayals, one laid over another, they killed her. “She killed herself.”

“Yeah? Shit.” Dean scraped the plate clean, pushed it away. “So who was your friend?”

“My friend?”

“Vampire friend.”

Alaric’s head was beginning to hurt and throwing down the rest of his beer and pouring another seemed like a bad idea, so he went with that. “Damon.”

“Damon. He was your…?”

What was he? Best friend came to mind, but perhaps only as a reflection of Dean’s description of his friend Benny.

Fuck it. Alaric would probably never lay eyes on Dean again. Why lie? “He was everything. And then he was gone.”

Alaric was half expecting some bullshit snickering, not that he cared, but Dean looked stricken. “I know how that goes,” he said, and Alaric wanted to ask, but he didn’t ask. Couldn’t. Not then.

They were kicked out at closing, and staggered, half holding each other up, in the direction of the motel. “That’s a lot of stairs,” Dean slurred, but they managed, and there was an odd moment when Alaric wasn’t sure if they were heading for the same room.

No, adjoining rooms, but the seed was planted.

Dean leaned heavily against the wall between the two doors, moonlight catching on his eyelashes.

“Nothing could ever replace Cas,” he said.

“Or Damon,” Alaric agreed, but he let Dean push him, drag him, barrel him into his own room. They wasted no time getting themselves naked, pressing angry, biting kisses against each other’s lips. Pressing hands to skin that hadn’t been touched in much too long, hungry hands, desperate.

The fact that Dean was so tall, so much bigger than Damon, made it easier. There could be no mistaking who he was with. Kneeling between his legs on the bed, Dean took Alaric in his mouth, deft tongue coaxing Alaric’s half-drunk cock to fully erect. Alaric tried not to fuck up into Dean’s face, but failed horribly. Dean seemed to like it, let himself half choke, like it was what he expected, and Alaric didn’t waste any time asking himself why that was hot; just let himself do what felt right, nodding jerkily when Dean pressed a finger over his hole, shooting those green eyes north in question.

On his stomach, with Dean muttering filth in his ear, about splitting Alaric open, and filling him up, Alaric tried to relax against the intrusion of Dean’s fingers, well-lubricated but rough and insistent and unfamiliar, now, after so long alone. With his body half-twisted around Dean’s legs, Alaric felt himself stretch. He’d almost forgotten what it was like, to be touched so thoroughly, inside and out.

Dean never stopped talking. “Yeah, baby,” he said. “You can take it, you can take it all. C’mon, baby, you want it. Tell me you want it.” Fully seated in Alaric he barely rotated his hips, keeping Alaric as full as he could, before slowly pulling out, just enough to make Alaric swear a blue streak when he pushed back in, and laugh, because his head was crowded with booze and memories and this could not possibly have been more different from being with Damon, and that made it okay.

That, and the fact that Dean was laughing too, laughing like it might stave off death, with his calloused hand jerking Alaric roughly to the first non self-administered orgasm Alaric had had since Damon died.

They lay exhausted a long while, after, and when Dean turned to lie on his back, Alaric came face to face with a scar in the shape of a handprint, high on his arm. He let out an involuntary gasp, and reached to fit his own hand to the shape.

“Scars,” Dean said, flinching gently away from the touch. “Something we got in common.”

He let one finger trace over the scars over Alaric’s face, cruelly dissecting his lip and his eyebrow, and Alaric nodded.

\--

They met up a month later in Nebraska, and Alaric learned to salt and burn skeletal remains, and Dean gave him what looked like an ancient walkman with a small nuke duct taped to the back, and taught him to read EMF; and Alaric sucked Dean off on the hood of the Impala before they found a shitty motel and learned the origins of each other’s scars. And they met a month after that in a vineyard not far out of Sacramento, where vampires had taken over a tiny, abandoned boutique hotel.

There, they did something which was quite akin to making love, and it hurt so badly they didn’t even text for the next three months.

\--

Alaric was in Washington, Virginia, and almost not quite debating with himself about heading to Mystic Falls for the weekend. It had been quiet. A few vampires here and there, a nasty bite which had taken a full month to heal slowing up his good arm.

It was fall, and past midnight, but still warm, and Alaric had allowed himself the rare treat of a nice hotel. He’d ordered room service over the phone and was shocked at how his voice sounded. Hadn’t spoken to another person in far too long. He was starting to think he might lose his mind, and the thought was almost comforting. He was nearly asleep, imagining his body was curled around Damon’s. Damon could be cuddly, when so inspired.

Just as he was falling asleep, the phone rang.

Alaric struggled to answer it, but answer it he did, not even sitting up, just holding the phone to his ear.

“Hello?” His voice was still creaky.

“What are you wearing?”

Alaric frowned, drawing the phone from his ear and frowning at the screen. He didn’t recognize the number. “Who’s this?”

There was a familiar, tinkling chuckle. “It’s me, dumbass. Dean.”

Alaric rolled onto his back. “Where are you? ’s happenin’?”

There was a long moment of silence. “Seattle. Huntin’. The usual. Just wondered if you could meet me. Corpus Christie.”

Alaric rubbed his eyes, and fumbled for the glass of water on his bedside table. “Texas?”

“You know another one? Yes, Texas.”

Alaric thought. Nothing was stopping him. Maybe Dean would come to Florida, afterwards, help him with a little werewolf problem. They had the time, three weeks before the full moon. “Yeah. I’ll get on the road tomorrow. See you in a few days, Dean.” And he hung up, and less than a minute later, the phone rang again.

“What? ’m not hittin’ the road tonight.” Alaric rubbed his eyes, and on the end of the line, invisible line, cell tower to cell tower, Washington to Seattle, Dean chuckled.

“So what are you wearing?”

Alaric tried not to smile. “I was nearly asleep. It’s almost one. What do you think I’m wearing?”

“I’m hoping you’re gonna say a scowl and nothing else, but I reckon you’re in boxer briefs. Black.”

Alaric felt himself stir. “You’d be right.”

“About the scowl? Or the briefs?”

Alaric shook his head. “Both.”

“Lose the underwear, and I’ll see what I can do about the scowl.”

“Dean…”

“C’mon, baby.” Alaric heard Dean shift. Probably lying back on a bed in a shitty motel room. He distinctly heard a zip, fabric being shifted.

And fuck it, why not? Alaric threw the blanket off himself, wriggled out of his underwear. “We’re both north of forty, Dean. You don’t think we’re a bit -”

“Speak for yourself, old man. I’m young, dumb, and full of come. Spit in your hand,” Dean said. Alaric heard him do the same thing. Shouldn’t have been as hot as it was. Alaric was glad the light was off. He could tell himself Dean was right there, maybe sitting on the end of the bed. So long since he’d wanted a hand on him, so long since he’d talked to someone and not lied his way through the whole conversation. “Get it wet.”

“Kinky fucker.” Alaric switched his phone to his left hand, and did it, though, spat into his right. His cock was already starting to bob under its own weight.

Dean chuckled. “You know it, baby. Nice. Wish I was there. I’d love a mouthful of what you got stored up. I’d take it across my face. Mm.”

Alaric shivered. “Gimme a couple of days,” he said, and wondered how long it would take him to drive sixteen hundred miles. Could he do it in two? No fucking way. Three? Yeah.

“Don’t be gentle,” Dean said. “Get it wet for me. Good and slick.”

This was just… weird, but Alaric obeyed. Held the phone to his ear, though he wished he didn’t have to. “You’d better be in this too, man,” he said.

“Dude, I’m two steps ahead… fuck.” Dean sounded wrecked already. “Nice and loose around the base. Like I’d do it. Tell yourself it’s my hand…”

“Swipe your thumb over the tip,” Alaric added. Getting into it now. “Taste it.”

“Now who’s the kinky fucker?” Dean’s voice was lower, growling. Alaric heard the distinct sound of a thumb being sucked clean, let his eyes drift shut, and followed suit. Dean tasted like pepper, and Alaric did not, but he did it anyway.

“Back to work,” Dean said. That rumbling bass, cracking now. “Fuck your hand like you fuck my mouth.” Alaric shivered, the sweat building on his skin and cooling quickly in the gentle air conditioning, listening hard to the wet smacking sound on the end of the phone. “Fuck. Oh, baby. Fuck.”

And Alaric fucked, fucked his hand (no, not like he fucked Dean’s mouth, because little else was that sweet) but he fucked. He propped the phone between his ear and the pillow so he could massage his balls, a little rough. Like Dean would do it.

Like Dean would do it. Not like Damon. Alaric couldn’t help but think of the handprint scar over Dean’s arm, and imagine laying his hand over it again, tracing the pink-white shape of it.

“You close, baby?”

Alaric was sure that if Damon had ever called him ‘baby’, Alaric would have punched him; but it sounded so right, coming from Dean, so debauched. He called Alaric ‘baby’ like he called his goddamn car ‘baby’ and it made Alaric’s teeth ache, it was that _right_.

Dean made a sound like he’d been punched in the stomach. Alaric could see him arching his back on some shitty motel room bed, in a room with flocked wallpaper and plastic coffee mugs and when Dean laughed, low and loud, and said “come on, Ric, your turn,” Alaric just obeyed. Streaked his stomach, thick and dirty, and couldn’t help but spread the muck with his fingers, as he eased back down off the precipice, heat still coiled low in his gut, balls achingly hollow.

“Wish I could see your face,” Dean said, when he could speak again, and Alaric didn’t know what to say to that, so he let himself breathe, felt his cock soften slowly. Quiet too long, maybe, because Dean said, “Ric? You still there?”

“I miss you, too, Dean,” Alaric said. He hadn’t realized it was true until just then.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yeah you did. I’ll see you in a few days,” and Alaric ended the call.

\--

Alaric arrived at Corpus Christie about ten at night, three days later, tired and filthy from the road. He elected not to call Dean; he had a long shower, instead, and almost missed Dean’s call.

“Your truck’s in the motel car park. What room are you in?”

Alaric considered, for less than a second, telling Dean he was tired, he needed to sleep, but instead he said “three nineteen, past the snack machine,” and hung up. Less than three minutes later Dean was at the door with a hungry look in his eyes, pushing Alaric towards the bed, kicking the door shut with a bang.

Alaric, still only dressed in a towel, still damp from his shower, felt his teeth buzz. Felt Dean’s need in the thrum of his muscles, felt it as he palmed over the front of Dean’s jeans, in the way Dean could barely get his belt unbuckled.

Alaric pushed Dean down, pulled the jeans over his hips, admiring again the sharp vee of the muscles at his waist, his cock purple and already beading at the head. They kissed roughly, hungrily, and with no finesse: teeth clashing, rutting together like schoolboys. Alaric lubricated his fingers, messily, uncaring, and with very little effort, breached Dean with two fingers. All the way, making Dean moan, and arch his back.

“More,” he begged, and the muscles on the insides of Alaric’s thighs jumped at the command. He added a third finger, pumping roughly. “I should have said it. I fucking missed you. I can handle this job on my own,” and it sounded like it pained Dean to admit it; “I just wanted you here, baby, I just…”

They kissed like they were fighting a war, Dean curved awkwardly up the bedhead and fucking himself back onto Alaric’s hand. “More,” he begged, and Alaric laughed, and nuzzled into Dean’s neck, and bit; hard enough to leave a bruise. He bit, and sucked, wanting to mark Dean, somehow. Any way he could. Dean squirmed beneath him, getting sloppy, getting messy, grabbing Alaric anywhere he could reach.

And always talking.

“Come on, baby. Come on. Fuck me,” Dean gasped. “I’m wide open.” So Alaric bent him in half, rough, again rough, because it made them both feel young, and he pushed inside Dean, just a little too slowly, so that Dean had to push back against him. Alaric chuckled.

“You’re a little fucked up,” he said, pulling back out, pressing the back of Dean’s thighs, keeping him folded over like a rag doll.

“Yeah, just how you like me,” Dean answered, green eyes glittering in the low light, sweat running rivulets off his forehead, his lip quirking into a grin.

Alaric slammed into him, hard, hard enough so that Dean arched his back, and moaned, and stopped smiling, and even, for a moment, stopped talking.

Alaric stopped worrying about being too rough, right then. Pounded hard into Dean’s ass, fisting his cock, feeling his balls slap over Dean’s flesh. Hard muscle meeting hard muscle, over and over again. A heart beat, a drum beat, getting faster.

Alaric missed the talking. Already, he missed the talking. “Tell me again how you missed me,” he said.

“I missed you,” Dean said, or slurred. “I… harder. I missed you, that’s all.” And he came in thick white stripes all over his stomach, and the sight of it made Alaric’s thrusts even more ragged, until he was filling Dean up, pouring all that he had into Dean, biting his lip at the feeling of Dean milking him with his sphincter. “Most of the people I miss I’ll never see again, but you…”

“I missed you, too,” Alaric said, as he withdrew, as he lowered Dean’s legs back on to bed. As he cleared some of the cooling ejaculate from Dean’s stomach with his tongue.

He lay down, then, alongside Dean. On his stomach, watching Dean ease back down.

He was surprised when Dean’s fingers found his own, surprised when they tangled together.

Neither said a word. Dean was always quiet, after. Alaric felt his heartbeat slow, his hitching breaths return to normal again. Only their fingers spoke. Dean turned Damon’s ring on Alaric’s hand, twisted it around, settled it back where it belonged. Alaric shifted up onto one elbow. Looming over Dean, over those green eyes. He pressed his cheek to Dean’s a moment, kissed the dusting of freckles over Dean’s face.

Feeling a little daring, he reached across with his other hand, settling it over Dean’s handprint scar. Dean didn’t flinch, not this time.

“Cas was an angel,” Dean said at last. Alaric snickered. Dean tipped his chin up, daring Alaric not to believe him. He met Alaric’s eyes. “Not kiddin’, dude. An honest-to-God angel of the lord. Pulled me outta hell, more’n once. That’s, ah. Where I got that scar. And he did more ’n that. Defied all of creation for me.”

Alaric began to suspect Dean was serious. He said nothing, not for a long time, but he removed his hand from Dean’s arm, and eased back down onto the bed.

“I’m not Cas,” he admitted, at last. “And I’m no fuckin’ angel. I’m just a washed up history teacher with a drinking problem and a suicidal streak a mile wide.”

“Yeah, well. I’m not Damon,” Dean answered.

They didn’t even clean up; just got under the sheets, and slept.

When Alaric woke, he was disoriented; sharing a bed after so long was disorienting. The sun was barely up, so he closed his eyes again, and when he woke a second time it was with his cock rapidly unfurling in Dean’s mouth. The best sort of wakeup call.

They had a breakfast of way too much bacon, and fried eggs, and sausage and toast and thin coffee that barely warmed their stomachs, let alone woke them up. Alaric smothered everything in Tabasco sauce, and barely looked up until Dean bumped his leg under the table.

“You okay?”

Alaric frowned, and nodded. “Fine.”

“That wasn’t…” Dean looked around. No one was paying any attention. “That wasn’t weird, right? I mean…”

“Don’t.” Alaric picked up a strip of bacon, so crispy it crunched between his teeth.

“I miss being on the road with someone,” Dean said, and he didn’t meet Alaric’s eyes when he said it. Quieter still: “Gets harder every year.”

“Dean…”

“I looked in the mirror one day. Couple months after Sacramento. And you know what I saw?”

Alaric looked up. What he saw was: Bright green eyes, fiercely intelligent, but tired. He saw well-earned crows feet at the corners, a sprinkle of grey in Dean’s hair. He saw a pair of lips like a cupid’s bow, a little too pink. He saw a bone-deep exhaustion, and a sadness, and he saw hope.

He saw himself.

“I saw my dad,” Dean said at last.

“Where’s Benny?”

“Got his own shit. I’m just sayin’…”

“I know what you’re sayin’,” Alaric argued. “Say it again when we’ve done this job.”

\--

It actually wasn’t such an easy job, and Alaric was as glad he was there as Dean was that he had asked him to come. Alaric learned that not all ghosts hang out and offer sage advice, or rattle chains, and how to pack rounds of rock salt on the fly.

They took a few days off the road and Alaric spent some of Damon’s money renting a fishing cabin on the water a good hundred miles outside Corpus Christie. Alaric was hurt, and would always be grateful that over the years Dean had become an ace at suturing a wound.

(“Just another scar,” Dean had said. “Not as impressive as the ones on your face, but… still, good and manly.” He brushed his hand over the more recent vampire bite, still raised and purple, the skin stretching white where it had healed a little wonky, and didn’t say anything about it. “Oughtta get you a tattoo, we’re gonna keep doin’ this. I’m a demon magnet.”

Alaric had swigged at the bottle, and fought the urge to watch the black thread catch the deep cut on both sides. A deep wound demanded to be looked at, though, and it was a battle he quickly lost. Dean’s hands were deft, and quick, though gentle, and though Alaric suspected vodka might not be quite as suitable as actual disinfectant, the wound looked clean.

“Tell me about demons another day, man. I’ve had enough for now.”)

The first day, they fished.

Alaric hadn’t fished since he was a Boy Scout and Dean said he thought his last time might have been in a dream. They sat on the pier at the edge of the river for hours and barely spoke a word, just enjoying the silence. They caught a pair of fat fish and cooked them over coals with black pepper and lemon, and drank the better part of a case of beer between them, overflowing with the words not shared through the day; tales of wendigos and vampire nests and ‘werepire, you fuckin’ serious dude?’ ‘…they call themselves hybrids, and unfortunately, yes,’ and why Alaric should be carrying a silver knife. And then they’d spent a good long time mapping out the dips and planes of each other’s bodies, kissing slowly over scar tissue and talking about what they’d both lost.

They were different, in the dark.

The second day featured less fishing and more speculating about a series of deaths in a small town in Idaho. Alaric said it really seemed like their sort of thing, and couldn’t quite understand why Dean looked sort of lost and fond for a moment. “I bet you’ve gone farther for less,” Alaric insisted, “and we’d still have time to get to the Everglades for the werewolf thing and… what?”

“Sound like someone.” Dean went quiet, and leaned across the table. “We’re really talking about doin’ this, right?”

Alaric paused, pencil waggling in his fingers. “Hitting the road together?”

He must have smiled just wrong, because Dean stood, and pushed his chair away from the table. “Forget it. It was a stupid idea. Stretched too thin to double up anyway,” he said, and it occurred to Alaric that maybe individually, they really were stretched too thin, and maybe Dean’s idea wasn’t entirely crazy.

So they ate burgers, and went skinny-dipping at twilight in the river until Dean’s feet touched something and he started screamed about eels.

“I don’t think it’s a stupid idea,” Alaric admitted, hours later, fingers strumming over Dean’s shoulder. Concentrating on the feeling of Dean’s breath against his throat. The room smelled like wood smoke and mild sweat. Dean said nothing, but Alaric felt the smile against his flesh.

Dean raised himself up onto one elbow. “You sure about this?”

“No,” Alaric said. “I think there’s a better than even chance we’re gonna end up wantin’ to kill each other. But I think it’s worth a try.” The thought of not waking up alone, the thought of knowing they had each other’s backs. It was…

It was crazy. Alaric was too old, felt too old, to start again. With any of it. But Dean’s vague optimism and his heavy heart, the whispered to Alaric. They could, maybe. Maybe do this. Maybe.

“I’m still not Damon,” Dean said, a low growl, lips brushing up against Alaric’s.

“I’m still no angel,” Alaric answered, and kissed him deep and sweet.

\--

They packed up silently on the third day. Alaric took his truck to a used car salesman and accepted less than five grand for it, knowing that if things didn’t work out, well, it was still the truck he and Damon had made love in three dozen times, and it was maybe time to let it go.

He climbed into the front seat of the Impala, and gave Dean a withering look.

“What?”

“Metallica?” Alaric pulled the door shut.

“Two rules, Saltzman,” Dean said. “Driver picks the music. Shotgun shuts his cakehole.”

**Author's Note:**

> A few weeks back I asked for crackship prompts for drabbles. Whoever made me write this terrible OTP-busting thing can stay out of my ask box from now on.  
> \--  
> Also: I am aware that it ends sort of abruptly. The appalling realization that it could be a monster fic made me close it faster than it wanted to be closed, lest I lose my mind.  
> \--  
> Thanks to vervainaddict for the art! Check out Alaric's scar!


End file.
